This is the latest of the self portraits. It's a flashback. It should have been done before the last one with the huge gash in my forehead. But like all things in life, events don't happen to you in a linear fashion. Shit happens. So this was done as a flashback. The gash first and then the reason why. Life works by it's own rules. We can only keep up with the changing rules like a little child playing Monopoly with an older bully kid who keeps winning because he changes the rules every ten minutes. That is what we all are... the little child getting played.
The name I gave this painting is the first line of a poem by William Blake titled The Divine Image from Songs of Innocence and Experience. Every artist worth his salt has had a dialogue with Blake. My dialogue is mostly the imagery I get from his words. Blake writes in ways that can only be explained by simply declaring that his work is some sort of generous, mystical gift from God/divine power.
The Divine Image points out that we all ask for help in times of distress, to the world at large, and to God. We are reminded in this poem that we are all the same in these difficult times, no matter what our beliefs or situations are. This first line, "To mercy, pity, peace and love" is the most beautiful I think, to describe our longing for relief. If relief is to come, it is to come from the Divine *and* from us. The two are collaborators when it comes to rescuing the one praying. It takes both God and man for Blake. And it is this simple premise of our relief coming to us, from us, that gives the power.
My painting is just a reminder to myself that this important truth applies to me as well. Sometimes we need that gentle tap on the shoulder from our own hand that we can indeed beat that bully kid in Monopoly.
